Lately I was reminded of how much growth is still left in me.
You see I am the type of person who thinks they have it all figured out. Secretly I know I don’t, but I put on a facade and mostly everyone around me thinks I am super confident, peppy all the time, and that I have it all figured out.
Don’t get me wrong. I do have some things figured out.
I thought I had one particular thing figured out. I could talk about it and teach lessons on it (in fact I have). However, I have been making a personal mistake regarding this particular thing for awhile, without noticing.
To make a long story shorter. Someone corrected me about it. Thankfully it was in private because I am embarrassed easily. I kept my game face on but in the car I cried.
I cried for a lot of reasons:
1.stress
2.I hate making mistakes
3.being a convert is hard sometimes
As a convert you transfer many things from your pre-mormon life. You grew up being taught something completely different about everything you know now. Not to say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is so vastly different, it’s really not, but there does take some adjusting.
After 3 years I figured I was solid on this subject, and I was doctrinally. But the mistake was in actual implication and sometimes you just hate making mistakes as a convert. It brought me back to when I was first baptized and I would make so many mistakes and have to be corrected on it and it just stung. Every time I made a mistake it felt like there was a huge neon sign over my head flashing FAILURE! Dramatic yes, but hey that’s me.
However I learned something from this experience this time. When praying I thought about it and I realized how much it had humbled me. Heavenly Father was showing me how much growth I still needed and how I would and still make mistakes as much as I like to think I don’t.
I am grateful for this experience and for a loving Heavenly Father who teaches us in such a gentle and kind way. He knows us so well. He knows what we can handle and what we can become.
Hey Gina,
Take it from me we are still very young, (especially you) with lots of mistakes to make. I think most will be mental (or doctrinal as you put it) but those are harder to catch because there's nothing but our own self-conscience to catch them. Keeping track of our own thoughts and evaluating them to be right is quite a hard undertaking to be doing all the time each day. The implication failures are pretty tough, and they stay with (me at least) for a long time, so I think I know what you're going through. I can totally tell we're related.
Love,JP